Drinking the Precious Blood of Jesus

[StuartJ]

Christians pretend to drink the blood of Jesus.

The Jesus character is believed to have been a human sacrifice to mollify the wrathful, planet-flooding, mythological Jewish deity, Yahweh.

Bearing in mind that the Jews were Canaanites and not a unique culture ...

And the Canaanites were accused of human sacrifice ...

(Please look these things up yourself.)

And the Jesus character was supposedly descended from the ancient David royal family, who had been replaced with figures from advanced cultures ...

Could the Jewish-Christian custom of worshipping a god-mollifying human sacrifice and pretending to drink the blood and eat the meat, be a relic of a barbaric Israelite past where sons of god-kings were sacrificed for the sins of the whole people ...?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by StuartJ]

Human sacrifice was not part of the Jewish tradition; the bible narrative depicts the God of the Jews being highly displeased when his people adopted such pagan practices from surrounding nations.

LEVITICUS 20:1

Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him

If the bible narratives are to be believed the Jews systematically ignored their national law and did indeed allow themselves to be seduced into abhorrent pagan practises such as child sacrifice.

The Jewish tradition however was of animal not human blood sacrifices. Jesus' "last supper", for example, was on the night of the "passover meal", a long held annual celebration commemorating the liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery. On this occassions a lamb was traditionally slaughtered and eaten. Since the Jews had ancient religious literature still available today, where and in what areas Jewish culture was distinct from ancient pagan traditions is not difficult to establish.


JW


RELATED POSTS


Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 18#p926518

Does the bible advocate the dashing of babies against rocks?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 65#p827065

Did the Canannites practice child sacrifice?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 58#p906458

What is the "ransom sacrifice" some Christians refer to?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 16#p875916

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 2 by JehovahsWitness]

I agree with much of your post here, JW. A couple of things though.
Where in the Bible does it indicate the Jewish people reverted to human sacrifice at times?

And yes, Jews differed with their neighbors because they did not practice human sacrifice, so why would Jesus (self-sacrifice) and Paul have reverted to it ritually in that one, very unique instance that Christians celebrate?

And if JWs admit Jesus is not God, then why doesn't believing in "his blood" really amount to human sacrifice?

And how is it not a disservice to the Father to believe He has an appetite for blood of any kind. Blood appeasement is for pagan deities, not for the living God.

(Psalm 50.8-15, Micah 6.6-8, Jeremiah 7.21-22, etc.)

[JehovahsWitness]

Where in the Bible does it indicate the Jewish people reverted to human sacrifice at times?

Psalm 106:37, 38 They would sacrifice their sons and their daughters to demons. They kept spilling innocent blood,the blood of their own sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

2 Chronicles 28:3 Moreover, he [Ahaz] made sacrificial smoke in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned up his sons in the fire, following the detestable practices of the nations+ that Jehovah had driven out from before the Israelites.

2 Chronicles 33:6 And he [Manasseh] made his own sons pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom; he practiced magic, used divination, practiced sorcery, and appointed spirit mediums and fortune-tellers. He did on a grand scale what was bad in Jehovahs eyes, to offend him.

Jeremiah 7:31 "They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that I had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart."

2 Kings 17:17 They [the Israelites ] also made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and looked for omens, and they kept devoting themselves to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him.

Ezekiel 16:20, 21 "You took your sons and your daughters whom you had borne to me, and you sacrificed these to idols [...] You slaughtered my sons, and you offered them as sacrifices by making them pass through the fire"

Ezekiel 20:31 And are you still defiling yourselves to this day by offering sacrifices to all your disgusting idols, making your sons pass through the fire? Should I at the same time respond to your inquiry, O house of Israel?



All passages NWT




JW

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

Jehovahs Witnesses most certainly do believe that Jesus sacrifice was a "human sacriifice" and embrace fully this fact as a fundamental tenet of our belief system.

HUMAN SACRIFICES OF THE PAST

Of course the expression "human sacrifice" today carries connotations of the ritualistic killing of a usually unwilling victim (often a child) to appease a cruel and angry God that takes pleasure in the suffering of his victims. A killing that serves no other purpose but to molify a impetuous and demanding God. This is a gross misrepresentation of the sacrifice Jesus made for mankind, but it is perhaps understandable for an audience influenced by the inexplicable cruelty of pagan religions.

To understand the ransom sacrifice, we need to put aside all the above preconceived notions and look to scripture for a view that properly represents what is one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith.


GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

• The first thing to understand is Jesus sacrifice was NOT made to benefit God in any way. God has no need of sacrifice in the sense that his existence is improved by them. Jesus sacrifice was offered for the sole benefit of mankind. Humans having found themselves in a position of inheriting death from our first father Adam, needed saving from this dire situation and God lovingly provided the solution. Rather than it being a situation of God punishing mankind if the sacrifice wasn't made, it was humans are suffering and the sacrifice will make it stop (Romans 5:18).

For detailed posts on the why there was a need for the ransom please see this LINK
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 916#875916

A NEW FATHER

• Another feature of ritualistic pagan sacrifices is that the victim is just that...a (usually) unwilling victim of circumstances that is forced to die. The bible narrative however presents Jesus as conscoiously making an informed decision to offer his life for mankind. He was not a masochist taking pleasure in his own pain, but he expressed understanding that this was for the benefit of mankind. He was not dragged kicking and screaming to his death but he faced it with the quiet dignity of a man with a purpose.
  

  The notion of someone being willing to die to save someone else's life is not a foreign one. Whether that be someone donating an organ, a mother risking death to save her unborn child in a medical emergency or a soldier on a mission from which it is certain he will not return. Once the purpose of the act is understood we rarely have distain for it, indeed we sometimes label such people, not as victims but as heros and honour both the deceased and the parent who raised them to be so honourable and brave.

  Jesus was willing to die so that he could legitimately adopt mankind and in becoming their "new father" (a second Adam as it were). Neither he nor his father was responsible for this need but they both were willing to pay the ultimate price to help us (humans). They had no pony in our particular race save for their affection for humans and a sincere regard for justice.

WHO HURT MORE?

• The pagan gods essentially viewed humans as their play things, pawns in their petty feuds or amusing objects to vent their anger or express their sexual perversions. The God of the bible in contrast created humans in his image and dignified us with spirituality, a sense of justice beauty and a touch of "divinity". He loves humans and so was willing to cause himself pain to save us from perpetual death. God feels pain? Yes indeed for any parent will testify there is nothing more painful than watching your child suffer. The ultimate horror for any parent is watching your child die. Jehovah God was willing to allow his son to die so that we (humans ) won't have to. We have the prospect of everlasting life because God was willing to endure the emotional pain of seeing his beloved son suffer an agonising death. We have hope because He raised enough of a hero that the son was willing to subject himself to the experience.

If God is omnipotent why didn't he just forgoe the need for a "sacrifice"?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 933#848933

CONCLUSION

Satan the Devil, God's enemy, knows that understanding and appreciating the ransom is the key to everlasting life (John 14:6). Unlike Jehovah he (Satan) hates mankind and wants them to die. To this end Satan has dumbed people down so much that they cannot concentrate to read and cannot focus enough to grasp the issues that made the ransom the only viable solution to mankind's plight. He (Satan) has also so besmirched mankind with false religion, each of which has features which mimic in the most perverse way possible, bible truths. This means for every bible truth there are centuries of corresponding grim caricatures which need to be stripped away, to see the glorious beauty of the good news. My hope is that this post motivates any searching for those truths not to give up.

RELATED POSTS

Why do we suffer and die?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 821#939821

Why was it necessary to save mankind?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 190#852190

FURTHER READING What went wrong?
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2017286#h=17





NOTE All the ideas above represent my beliefs as one of Jehovah's Witnesses

[StuartJ]

[Replying to post 5 by JehovahsWitness]

The question simply is:

Could the Jewish-Christian custom of worshipping a god-mollifying human sacrifice and pretending to drink the blood and eat the meat, be a relic of a barbaric Israelite past where sons of god-kings were sacrificed for the sins of the whole people ...?

I suggest you are dodging it.

[StuartJ]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

The question is:

Could the Jewish-Christian custom of worshipping a god-mollifying human sacrifice and pretending to drink the blood and eat the meat, be a relic of a barbaric Israelite past where sons of god-kings were sacrificed for the sins of the whole people ...?

Please address it ....

[StuartJ]

I'm going to post the question one more time and challenge the faith community to tackle it directly:

Could the Jewish-Christian custom of worshipping a god-mollifying human sacrifice and pretending to drink the blood and eat the meat, be a relic of a barbaric Israelite past where sons of god-kings were sacrificed for the sins of the whole people ...?

As can be seen above, a common trick to obscure a difficult question is to copy and paste a pile of barely relevant material into a post.

And hopefully other members won't want to plough through it and the OP doesn't get addressed.

I often know I've made a good point when this happens.

It's quite obvious the Jesus character in the Christian-Jewish propaganda was portrayed as a human sacrifice to mollify Yahweh.

To me, an obvious explanation is that the Jesus character belonged to a Jewish faction that at least symbolically held to their ancient practice of human sacrifice and blood drinking.

A practice banned when they and the Davids lost power and the "scriptures" were rewritten.